Summary of the family name

The original home of the BOUMPHREYS at the beginning of the 18th century was in the Wirral peninsula in Cheshire, and although many members of the family moved early in the 19th century to Liverpool and branches have since scattered to other parts of England and even overseas. there are still representatives of it in Wirral.

Persistent family tradition asserts that the BOUMPHREYS were, in the 17th century, Huguenots who took refuge in England from the religious persecutions of Louis XIV of France, bringing with them the arms used by the family, and this tradition may perhaps be held to receive some corroboration from the fact that no trace has yet been found of any member of the family living before 1670 or 1680. Moreover, a Scottish family from Fife with the very similar name of BOMPHREY has exactly the same tradition of a Huguenot origin from France or the Low Countries.

The name, however in its early form of BOMPREY occurs in England before 1685, the date of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; thus, on Page 34 of the Allegations for Marriage licences issued by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster edited by G.J. Armitage occurs the entry “1633, Roger Bomfrey and Susanna Ivery;” and administration of the estate of Edward Bomfrey, of Prescot who died intestate in 1683, was granted on 22 October 1683 to his widow, Isabel, the inventory of his goods amounting to £15.2.0; so that the name would not appear to be of French Huguenot origin, and is more probably a corruption of the Welsh “ap Humfrey.”

Moreover. the fact that the first verifiable ancestor or ‘Stammvater’ of the present BOUMPHREYS bore the name RICHARD BAITSON, alias BOMFREY, would seem to dispose of the theory of a Huguenot ancestry, though it is of course possible that RICHARD BAITSON, or his father, married a Huguenot whose family bore the arms which have since then been used by the BOUMPHREY family.

The Parish Registers of St. Andrew’s, Bebington. reveal that at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries the names BAITSON, BAYTSON and BETSON were all variations of the same name and from the close associations of the BOUMPHREYS with West Kirby, in Wirral, it would appear that the family is, in fact, descended from the BETSONS who lived at West Kirby during the 16th and 17th centuries. The reason for the adoption of the name BOMFREY remains unknown; it is possible that RICHARD BAITSON married a BOMFREY and assumed his wife’s name, or that BOMFREY was his mother’s maiden name.

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There is more detail on the family tree on ancestry.co.uk. Contact Bill Boumphrey (user name wsboumphrey) on Ancestry.co.uk for more information.